PENN TWP — Jeff Baum leaned back on a couch to enjoy the morning sun and his local paper: the Wisconsin State Journal.

Baum, a charter pilot, left Oshkosh, Wis., in the morning with seven corporate clients. His jet arrived at the Butler County Airport in time for a business meeting in the area.

The clients would have lunch on the plane en route to Montreal and be back in Wisconsin in time for dinner at home.

"An airport goes a long way toward making a community easy to do business with. It's an asset," Baum said. "And the bigger the runway, the better the asset."

Baum said when he broke through the clouds in Butler County, he could not have been more pleased to see an 800-foot runway expansion under way at the county airport.

The $4.5 million project, which increases the runway to 4,800 feet, is the single largest improvement project in the airport's 77-year history.

It started in the idea phase more than a decade ago, overcame years of obstacles and opposition, and should be finished this spring.

And if you think Baum is happy about it, you should see the glimmer in Don Bailey's eyes.

"It is exciting because it is going to improve this airport," said Bailey, who had been a career pilot prior to becoming the airport manager.

Bailey stresses safety when talking about the expansion project. The longer runway will make a safe airport more safe, he said.

Planes have become faster and more powerful since the airport opened in 1929, and the extra runway will increase the space they have to move about.

Baum, for example, said he had no fears in landing on the airport's current strip on a blustery February morning.

But had it been snowing, for example, Baum said he likely would have picked a different airport with a longer runway.

Bailey cannot deny the longer runway also will make what he calls "one of the busier airports in Western Pennsylvania" a hair more inviting to business and attractions.

On any given day there are about 110 aircraft on the property — in hangars, parked or in motion. Baum's plane, in by 10 a.m., was the fifth to land that morning.

And already the 311-acre airport complex houses a variety of businesses that employ about 90 people with jobs ranging from pilots and engineers to waitresses and secretaries.

The airport authority employs three: Bailey, a maintenance man and a secretary.

The airport's largest employers, with just about 30 employees each, are the Runway Restaurant and AirQuest Aviation, which is the airport's relatively new fixed-base operator.

It offers numerous services to people who use the airport, ranging from flight classes, charter flights, fuel sales and a repair station.

It also offered Baum, and other pilots, the comfortable leather couch he sat on and a doughnut or two to brighten the morning.

There are two rest areas for pilots and a room set up for weather and flight information requests. Additionally, AirQuest delivers the food that private pilots offer their clients.

"Sometimes that's lobster," said Jerry Kennihan, co-owner of AirQuest. "Sometimes that is Subway."

Kennihan said his company, at the airport for less than two years, also is excited about the runway expansion.

"That's nothing but positive for us," he said. "It really will give us a better presence."

Other companies onsite at the airport are Accessories Inc., Armstrong, Keystone Helicopter Company, Nation Air Insurance and Palmer Bannerot.

There also are buildings occupied by the Federal Aviation Administration and others staffed 24 hours a day by Lifeflight nurse and flight crews.

Airport visitors are a bag mixed with regulars, transients and occasional plane-owning celebrities, Bailey said.

Some are corporate and business users, others are there for the sheer sport.

There's a core that knows each other well, and others who will cross paths only once.

"We all love flying," Bailey said. "So there is a common language."

Bailey said it is not uncommon for the Butler County Airport to be recognized by pilots nationwide. Yet it's also not uncommon for lifetime county residents to ask Bailey where the airport is located.

"There's a lot more here than you would think, eh?" Bailey said with pride.